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MindBullet: Space Crash Takes Down the Internet (15 March 2014)

MindBullets are a fantastic series of content from the FutureWorld group. Essentially they're news articles written from the future, showing us examples of just how quickly our world is changing, and where it might take us. Explore further MindBullets here or read more about the FutureWorld Group.

One day, we're doing to wake up and go DUH. We're putting a lot of gear in space, gear that we are increasingly reliant on. And yet we have no real way to clean up after ourselves. It's like mine dumps, rubbish dumps and toxic waste dumps. Humanity has a track record of not being around when the dishes need to be done.

So it makes sense that somethings going to go wrong. How dependent is your business on internet or communication links that are in turn dependent on certain satellites being up? We certainly saw the hoo-hah recently when the undersea cable to South Africa had an issue and "the net went down". If it happens in space... it's a little harder to fix.

We don't really own the Internet anymore. The pipes, connections and hubs are all commercialised. We're just oblivious, happy users. Remember this when it breaks and we don't know why!